Biting the hand of Project Fear

Blithering idiocies and the maturity of children

How do you respond to blithering idiocy without descending into idiocy yourself? It’s a difficult question, and one which is regularly posed to independence supporters. Anger at the shit-stirring proclivities of mainstream journalists itself becomes murphed into the ‘abuse’ of poor Unionist commentators who have a god-given right to spew lying bile in a crude and transparent attempt to mislead and misdirect, and it becomes a tale of evil bullying nationalists and not a tale of a journalist who traduces his profession.

Tom Brown is described by the Record as a “legendary political commentator”. Judging by his latest jaw-dropping piece, that would be legendary in the sense of mythical monsters. Tom’s article was replete with myths and monsters, disguised as a serious intervention in the referendum debate. It was a string of insults disguised as facts. Baseless fears disguised as evidence. It was infantile crap even by the standards of a publication which specialises in infantilism.

There are four people in this world I love more than anyone else. My partner, my daughters, and my mother. Of the four only my mother is Scottish – and she’s largely Irish by descent. The others are English, London born, London bred, London raised. My daughters were born to English mothers in England. My daughters have two mothers and two fathers. I’m the only Scot. They’ve lived in London all their lives. They still live there, the Sarf London Innit joy of my existence. They are my children, the flesh of my flesh, the light of my soul. My love for them is unconditional. Tom wants us to believe that love is determined by passports. And this is the man who thinks independence supporters are narrow minded and short sighted.

Tom wants my daughters and me to believe that if Scotland becomes independent my English loved ones and I will become foreigners to one another, that my parents will be blocked by barriers of nationality from the love of their granddaughters. We will be estranged, our relationship tense and fractured. Unconditional love replaced by a stamp in a booklet at a border crossing that only exists in his mind, in the fevered frantic spin in defence of an indefensible political system.

How fucking dare you Tom Brown. You will not tell me or anyone else what our feelings will be towards our English relatives. Do you seriously believe that my children will become alien to me? That I will no longer love them just the same? That’s some nerve you’ve got there. Your fears Tom, are you own, do not project them onto me. Do not project them onto my daughters. Do not project them onto my parents. If you genuinely fear that you will no longer love your own grandchildren just the same after Scottish independence, then you are in desperate and urgent need of family therapy and counselling. Because Tom, you are the one with the problem and it is a specific problem peculiar to you, not to a nation.

By a strange coincidence, just this morning I got a letter from my elder daughter. She’s a talented photographer and I’d nagged her for a while about sending me some copies of her photos so I can get them framed, and displayed proudly on the wall. We don’t get to see one another as often as we used to since my partner’s health declined. They can’t stay here as my partner is too frail to cope with visitors coming to stay for a few days – and the truth is I want to protect my children from witnessing the decline of a man they have always looked to as their other Daddy. That’s a real barrier to our relationship, a real obstacle in the way. But it changes nothing about our feelings for one another. Love conquers all. Tom Brown doesn’t know what love is if he doesn’t know that.

Just a few days ago, my elder daughter and I had been chatting on the phone about the scaremongering in the referendum campaign and how Scots were being told that we’d be estranged and alienated from our loved ones in England. She laughed. She thought it funny. She thought it funnier when I remarked that she was already alien to me because she’s a girl in her late teens, and the workings of the teenage female mind are profoundly alien to crabbit auld gits like me. So she finally sent me the photos of her and her sister I’d been reminding her to send for months, and at the bottom was a PS. “You’ll never be foreign to us. xx”

I’m even more crabbit after reading Tom Brown’s offensive tirade. Tom tells us that it’s insulting to his grandchildren in England that they will have to apply for Scottish citizenship. The only insults here are the insults Tom throws at those of us who are far more mature and adult than he is – people like my teenage English daughter and her 11 year old sister.

Grow up Tom. When an 11 year old has more maturity than you, you’ve lost the argument, you’ve lost moral authority, you have lost any respect you once claimed to have as a “legendary political commentator”.

[…] So let us begin. (Edited to add: But before you do, can I also direct you towards the rather more esteemed-than-I journalist that is Derek Bateman, who has also written about TB’s article today. 2nd edit: And the Wee Ginger Dug has weighed in as well.) […]

Midst all the historico-political insults flying around towards Yessers over the last few weeks, we are to believe everything is summed up by this man, Brown, “who thinks independence supporters are narrow minded and short sighted,” and himself codifies and circumscribes love and identity, and worth, with parameters of exclusion.
Not the worst: the voicers of the historico-political insults are in political bed with those who unashamedly (and uncensored to the point of BBC paroxysmal transmissions thereof) trumpet explicit homophobia, xenophobia, romaphobia, travellerphobia, racism and scourge those who do not work. The parties of the mainstream – the Pary of “Socialism” too – take up the mantle of demonising the sick, the mentally ill, the carers and others who cannot work, and harry them no less than we harried those citizens of empire.
The sheer blazing not even hypocrisy – subversion of it all to the point of farce is elephantinely unremarked upon. The SNP-Yessers want to encourage immigration to meet the economic targets of supporting pensioners and the marginalised. Policies that are anathema to UKIP and middle England, but the terms of insult with which the No, Thanks people engage with us (and only on those terms) are the terms specifically linked to the ideologies they inspire.

I feel I am living in some sort of space-time continuum warp vortex I am wondering if I should call myself River Song.

This response to the nonsense that family become foreigners if Scotland gets Independence is exactly right. I have relatives around the world – most of whom emigrated for a better life than could be obtained on their own doorstep. I don’t think of them as “foreigners” but as relatives with a shared history. My daughter in London will never be a ‘foreigner’ to me.

Come to think of it who thinks of anybody they meet as “foreigners”? Only those with very narrow horizons or an agenda. Scottish Labour peddle a line of sophistry of which this ‘family will become foreigners’ trope is only one example – they need challenged at every twist of logic they take.

I think your reaction is pretty much the majority reaction. What a load of old S****, who is daft enough to believe that kinda tosh? By far the worst thing though is prostituting yourself to write it, knowing the only plaudits will come not from readers who aren’t daft enough to fall for it but the Labour politicians who would desperately want it to be true.

I don’t write this stuff for plaudits – I write it because I don’t think idiotic claims should remain unchallenged and think the idiocy must be pointed out. There are very few things in this life which get on my goat more than being patronised by idiotic claims made with a hidden – or not so hidden – agenda. I’m sure you feel much the same. It’s bad enough to be lectured with an idiotic argument which claims to be factual, it’s intolerable to be lectured with an idiotic argument that tells us how we must feel and how and who we can love. That’s where Tom Brown crossed the line.

Idiocies become received truths if they remain unchallenged. We have an obligation to challenge them. When it’s an idiocy like that espoused by Tom Brown, challenging it becomes a moral imperative.

Indeed Grouse Beater. Same old, same old. The English Alien Act of 1705 turned the screws on Scotland, as Scots would be treated as ‘aliens’ in England and would have their property and assets seized. But the Act wouldn’t apply if negotiations started for a Union.

And now we have Davie throwing cash around Glasgow like it grows on trees. Bought and sold for English gold anyone?

I have a greater faith in my compatriots than a few of my friends that they see things as you do.

And though too many respond to fear in their hearts borne out of subservience but give it other names that comfort, such a ‘one-nation,’ or ‘internationalism,’ or ‘Britishness,’ I think we will win our democracy again. Already we see the UK Parliament bending to our demands for equality.

For sure we’ll win. And we’ll win because the people are engaged and excited. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I see all these wee groups and organisations coming out for Yes. Asians for Yes. Women for Yes. Academics for Yes. Pensioners for Independence, Cabbies for Yes. Generation Yes. There’s a feeling that this is our time, this is our moment. And, man, we’re going to take it!

THe media have seriously let themselves down in this campaign. There was a nice article in the Courier today. It will be crazy to think that the Courier may win the Independence debate. Crazy and true.

Dundee was a great place to grow up – the mutual respect and banter between the Arabs and the Blues never descended to violence. When Dundee won promotion, I think every United supporter was genuinely happy for our neighbours, work colleagues and family – we had a derby back again. Dundee – the biggest Yes city in Scotland.

A lot of people keep talking down the “emotional” Yes vote, equating it with unpredictability, capriciousness, illogic. Well I say what in God’s name is logical about lying about your own feelings about your own children, based on a series of lies peddled by liars?

I was furious when I read that No Borders “will Grandpa become a foreigner” ad, and I was furious here. To be frank, I didn’t think it deserved the dignity of such a devastating riposte. But I’m so glad you did it!

[…] How do you respond to blithering idiocy without descending into idiocy yourself? It's a difficult question, and one which is regularly posed to independence supporters. Anger at the shit-stirring p… […]

I managed his first three paragraphs and couldn’t believe this was an adult writing. How you manage to plough through this nonsense Paul is beyond me; my blood was boiling.

Are people like Tom Brown so stuck in the past that they are scared to see what is before them? All this talk of family being foreigners is one of the most ridiculous ‘beliefs’ I have ever heard. Not only is it ridiculous it is downright irresponsible to even suggest to people that this is somehow how it will be. There may be people who believe this line and become frightened that this may be the case. If Tom believes this then fine; he needs help, as you say. What we don’t need is garbage like this being peddled in a so-called newspaper.

But you know that Tom Brown did not really mean what he said. We don’t really need to have grandchildren in England or elsewhere for that matter to know that what he said was rubbish. In fact, it was only while I was writing that, that I remembered that I have a grandson who is English.( i mean, of course, that it isn’t his nationality that I think of when I think of him – not that I had forgotten I have a grandson!)

When unionists come up with silly arguments like that, you know it’s because they can’t or won’t give the real reason for what they feel. It’s why we are still waiting for a cogent, intelligent argument for the union. It’s either wrapped up in sentimental waffle or outright lying or baffling piffle like this.

People like Mr Brown are probably genuinely annoyed with us for stirring up trouble in the plantation. He was comfortable with the status quo, it had given him a good living and position. He had got to dine at the high table with people he thought of as his betters, climbed the pinnacle and even got to be considered fit company. However, the rest of us don’t give due deference to his achievements and don’t know that we are not fit company. If we are not looking upwards then how can Tom Brown feel that he has arrived? We just don’t know our place.

It reminds me of Malcom X’s description of the house slave and the field slave and how different were their opinions of their master and his household. But we don’t need to go even to dramatic situations like that to recognize what is going on here. We have all come across it at some time or other, the N.C.O stereotype with the officer class, the colonial attitude etc.

I remember a particular incident which encapsulates it for me, when Pauline McNeil (?) former MSP made it to the Valhalla of the House of Commons. She was delivering some attack on the SNP government and allowed an intervention from some suave Tory from the other side who proceeded, in his polished Oxbridge accent, to endorse her sentiments. Her face positively glowed with happiness and gratification. It was quite pathetic. But sums them up for me.

My eldest son lives in Surrey, has a delightful English wife and their 2 children born in England. In the highly unlikely event of my grandson (aged 8) asking if I would be a foreigner I would have to point out that his father would be considered a foreigner because he was born in the heart of Glasgow! How ridiculous is that?

I’m going to email you something a Wings commenter noted Paul. Feel free to add it.
I’m going to have a quick comment on it, probably tomorrow.
Here’s my follow up to The Tory Fundraiser. They really are laughing at us….

I am Scottish, my wife is Irish, my sons are Australian and we all live in the same house and love each other. But I am the only one whose passport doesn’t reflect my nationality! Hurry up and vote yes.

Well said. Thinking of people as foreigners is either an attitude of mind, or a ploy to con undecideds into voting No.

I never think of people as foreigners — they’re just people, sometimes from another country. But amongst some people there does seem an undue fixation with foreigners. Perhaps, like the nastiness, it’s a sign of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of being prised out their cosy rut, fear of the challenges of setting up a reborn nation. Excitement should be the reaction, instead they lash out in fear. Shame.

OMG I just read that article. It is stomach turning sycophantic rubbish. Tom Brown even refers to Crash Gordons “accession” to Labour Leadership. I can’t help thinking that Tom Brown wanted to type ascension like he is some kind of fecking deity but bottled it. (weepukeingfacethingy)

You see I quite often come across the subject of this article while out walking my dug. And seeing how he describes Yes supporters as “Cyber-reptiles” It would be nice to have the alligator with me.

“Cyber reptiles is it. I`ll show you cyber reptiles get him gnasher!”

Before headlines in tomorrow’s Daily Reckor say “Evil Cyber-reptile issues death threat to Legendary political commentator” I’m only joking! 😉

Honestly the contempt for the independence movement is dripping out of his article like shite out of a dug wi diarrhea.

Off topic. I note that another “Better Together UKOK No Thanks” representative has said that independence supporters are thick. Well I am coming out as a blithering idiot.I have decided that after a lifetime of idiocy it is time that I went public. “I am a blithering Idiot!” So thats it official. So if I am now a recognised idiot and I can debate most union supporters to a standstill what does that make them?

“Were here, were thick, we know which box to tick.” Vote Yes! *

* With acknowledgement to the original comment on “Wings over Scotland”.

It’s not really that easy to define reptile. Some scientists reject the label, since classifying lizards, snakes, crocodiles and turtles together as reptiles means you’ve got the difficulty that crocodiles are more closely related to birds than they are to turtles or snakes.

Admittedly I’ve never seen a flying crocodile, but I’ve seen plenty of flying pigs from the No campaign, so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

Anyway, I don’t mind being a cyber reptile if I can get to be a tortoise. In the race between the No hare and the Yes tortoise, one of them has been slowly coming up from behind and is inching to victory.

I live next door to a reptile shop (in Canberra. Australia) – and they have a plastic Tyrannosaur in the garden between us. Perhaps that’s how we should characterise ScotsBrits – not adaptable enough to be crocodiles –

I gave up at the first use of Nats and narrow nationalism on even trying to see Mr Brown’s POV. If he can’t be bothered to look at the breadth of modern civic nationalism or see that the proposals for an independent Scotland are far more outward looking and inclusive than that of the current UK parliament or drift of politics then I don’t see why I should bother giving time or weight to anything else he may say.

I gave up before that. I have to reject articles which are likely to make me see red.
Incidentally, like many, many Scots I have relatives in England, Canada, America, Australia and Norway. All left home for the same old reason. One thing sure, independence will help to stem the flow of young people from our Scottish shores.
Great piece from Paul. Thank you.

TBH I should’ve done the same but read the whole thing through anyway. I didn’t get angry strangely enough, just sad and a bit resigned. Some people refuse to look at the evidence before their very eyes and hang on to old labels, old wrongs, old perceptions. Worse the man may even have known that what he wrote was wrong in every sense, but was merely following a different politicised agenda. As I say, I stopped caring when the labels were issued.

Regardless, that sort of close minded nonsense is what we’re seeking to leave behind along with all the terminal bitter rot that goes with it.

I would suggest that the underlying meaning of the Tom Brown article is to imply that independence is a threat to family life and the security of our relationships with those who are closest to us. This is also implicit in the attempts to describe the independence movement as a form of fascism and totalitarianism. Most people have an understanding of how totalitarian states impose rifts between children and their parents, as the younger generation is recruited into the ’cause’. It is vitally important, I believe, for the ‘yes’ campaign to make it clear that the kind of society we are trying to create is intended to be a place in which the quality of relationships between people will be highly valued, and the influence of consumerism and exploitative work patterns will be challenged. One way to do this is to make connections between political and economic issues and personal life. This is one of the reasons why the ‘wee ginger dug’ blog has such a powerful impact. However, some means needs to be found to project this into the future, so that people who are contemplating voting yes can get a tangible sense of the positive ways in which an independent Scotland will support relationships and family life. The Tom Brown article was able to do this in a negative way, that was intended to scare people. What do we hope for, in relationships between people in an independent Scotland? How can we best articulate these hopes? The fear of members of our family becoming ‘foreign’ touches something that is real – losing connection, not belonging. My own hope is that the referendum will mark a turning point in the way that we think about ourselves and the way we are with each other. Having got rid of a corrupt political system, together we have decided to take responsibility for making a better society.

It’s worse than you think. Tom Gordon doesn’t believe that crap he wrote and he doesn’t need you to tell him it’s rubbish. If he believed any of that stuff you would just write him off as a very silly person, but that he is not. It’s smart and calculated, and that’s what makes it *really* slimey. Gordon knows perfectly well that the ‘foreigner’ stuff is silly nonsense. He is telling a Big Scary Lie confident in the knowledge that there is a section of the Daily Record readership that will believe it, and make it a reason for voting No.

I canvass and speak to people in the street and every so often that ‘foreigner’ line comes back at you. Yes, it is foolish and unthinking, but it’s an excuse to vote No. I’m quite sure that dog-whistles like this emerge from focus groups, Gordon has been informed of this and asked to use it, and has obliged.

Orwell once wondered if the British ruling class were wicked or merely stupid. They’re wicked, and Gordon is just a little bit of their apparatus. He’s wicked, not stupid.

Heh, I keep making that mistake too “Tom Gordon” instead of Broon. It’s the Kirkcaldy effect. Someone on Twitter was saying that Tom Brown is a cretin. That’s not true. Cretins have a good excuse for saying cretinous things. Tom Brown is not a cretin. What he wrote was cynical, manipulative, and just plain nasty.

As with most people in Scotland we have seen family members move abroad, they are still family members. I do hope that Mr Brown, god another one, do they all have to be members of the Brown Family, really doesn’t believe a word he has printed because if he does I suggest that he needs help.

Tom Brown and the rest of the “proud Scots” who are also “British” etc, really make the argument for independence. If the union was so successful people everywhere would simply describe themselves as British but they don’t and never have. Why is that? I’m Scottish although people from other lands are part of my family tree but I don’t feel the need to give myself a multi barrelled label. Those who came here were absorbed into my family and became Scottish by living here. England/Westminster have always wanted to project an air of supremacy and still do to this day so have never promoted the idea of unity through one single British nationality. And that is IMHO why it’s never worked.

I think JGedd hits the nail on the head. People like Tom Brown are suffering from what used to be called false consciousness. They identify with their masters and dutifully fire the bullets that others have supplied. It probably adds jam to his bread and butter. In the early days of feminism this was called “Uncle Tomming”!

Clicked the link to read it. Couldn’t be true, could it? I mean, he really can’t believe all that stuff, surely. No ‘journalist’ could write such stuff thinking it was actually true.

Either he’s as uninformed and scared as some old guy who hasn’t paid any attention to the debate and someone’s said to him that his grandkids would be foreigners after a Yes vote and he wouldn’t be able to see them anymore unless he got a passport.

Or, as others have said, he wrote a calculating, conniving, ghastly, disgraceful, lying piece to scare said old uninformed Record readers into voting No.

At least the comments were scornful and saw right through it. ‘Distinguished journalist’? Aye right. Should be ashamed of himself.

I’m not defending anyone here but like I mentioned in an earlier comment I know Tom Brown and some of his family on a casual basis. They walk their dug around the same area as I do! Politics aside they are nice people. I have even had a bit of indi banter with one of them.

I think that Tom Brown (who is getting on a bit now) believes every word that he wrote. He is longing for the “good old days” when the Labour Party, The Daily Record and Glasgow City Council all worked in concert and folk gave a shit what they thought. The independence debate is destroying this cosy wee world.

Aye.. well he might want to expand his horizons a wee bit.. perhaps he could even visit Dundee. I did it the opposite way in the 80’s and was amazed and horrified at how it was a dysfunctional city with a council that was even more corrupt and certainly more sectarian than where I had come from.

There is no doubt that over the last 300 years some people in Scotland have benefited immensely from the Union – the already rich and the noveau rich industrialists that followed in their wake.

But the vast majority of people did not and do not benefit. And for all the talk of industry and education and welfare and health we never see the other side of the Union coin.

We never hear about the fact that a small minority possess that vast majority of land and wealth. We never hear of the riches made from exploiting the workers. We never hear of the money generated from things like slavery, opium or tobacco which built the centre of Glasgow. We never hear about the workers marches put down by armed force or the brave men and women of Braes bludgeoned for daring to ask for more control over the land on which they lived. We never hear about the clearances – both Highland and Lowland; both forced and voluntary. We never hear about the 1 in 5 who still live in poverty or the fact that some parts of Glasgow still have the lowest life expectancy in Europe. We never hear of the multiple atrocities committed across the world in our name whilst an empire was forged. And so on and so forth.

The Union has had three centuries to get things right and sort these problems and it has failed. The rich simply get richer and the gap gets bigger whilst the NHS is falling apart, our educational attainment is declining, our welfare system is slashed, our old folk are neglected, etc.

We watched the programme last night on the World’s Best Diet,it was on earlier we had it on the hard drive. We came in at 37 with England at 34, the other two spots were Northern Ireland at 36 and Wales at 35. Now you may find it hard to believe but they went into England’s diet, surprise, none of the other Nations were looked at and given that we have a higher death rate you would have thought some explanation would have been given. We have to say that maybe we are not better together in this case.
The winner was ” Sound Trumpets” Iceland, another small nation.

I lived in Dubai for four years, was I a foreigner then? I didn’t feel any different. I guess that means my parents were foreigners too (to me) even though they never left Scotland. I’m now back in Scotland, so I guess I am not a foreigner any more, a former foreigner? An un-foreigner? Can you have your foreigner-ness removed? And what about my friends in Dubai who are from all over the world, were they still foreigners even though we were all living in the same country? I’m confused…

Well said Steve and all. I deal with my 80 year old wrecker reader every week. a generation that believed in the papers .I’m nearly getting there.Then this piece of pish comes out [her gran weans are Spanish] . Gie us strength !!!!

I reckon that there are two types of unionist. Those who for mostly tribal reasons will vote no because they genuinely believe all the propaganda that comes out of Better Together and the MSM. They will soak it up like a sponge. When presented with a positive case for independence they will put their fingers in their ears and its ” La la la, I can’t hear you”. This group is more to be pitied than scalded.

On the other hand there are those who will deliberately lie, smear and threat in order to make ordinary decent folk vote against their own self interest. All so that they can maintain their place in the que for the UK gravy train. These people I despise. If I was at all religious I would be on my knees praying that Satan himself would reserve a special place in hell for these scum.

Just to add to my above comment. I was talking to one of my neighbours over the garden gate last night. Decent family, nice polite kids, Regular church goers, Ibrox season ticket holder. I am unaware of any other affiliations but the red white and blue bunting was up for the Queens jubilee. A “Naw” sticker has recently made an appearance in their front window.

I remember delivering their Yes newspaper and thinking that it was a waste of time and effort. Anyway despite wearing a Yes badge (as always) I deliberately avoided talking directly about the referendum. I got to speaking about the terminally ill cancer sufferer who despite having a letter from his doctor declaring him unfit to travel was sanctioned for missing a DWP interview and was left with £11.00 a week to live on. So far so good. I got a couple of digs in about “Crash Gordon” or should that be revised to “Cash Gordon”? I then managed to turn the conversation to the foodbanks and the horror stories coming out of the Maryhill foodbank in particular. My neighbour genuinely believed (because he knew someone that knows someone ) that some of the folk that use foodbanks have plenty of money to spare for fags and booze. Also some of the food from foodbanks ends up being sold on in The Barras. Oh dear…oh dear…oh dear!

Perhaps fortunately it was getting dark by this time so we called it a day. And parted on good terms but I’m going to have to revisit that one.On a lighter note I am going to a neighbourhood barbecue on Saturday and I know that a very pro union guy will be there. Im looking forward to that one!